


All We Are [No Longer Updating]

by Alannaa



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Animal Hybrids, Animal Ears, Animal Traits, Anxiety, Bison!Burnie, Blood, Body Horror, Gen, Hybrids, Mild Gore, Minor Injuries, Minor Violence, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Paranoia, Rabbit!Ray, bird!gavin, bull!Ryan, cat!Michael, lion!Jack, ram!Geoff
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-02-20
Updated: 2014-07-15
Packaged: 2018-01-13 03:47:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 15,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1211422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alannaa/pseuds/Alannaa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“So, what you’re saying is, that the sun had a fit, and turned us all into furries.”</p><p>“Yep, pretty much.”</p><p> </p><p>Following a drastic change that leaves several of the Rooster Teeth crew feeling a little less than human, they must strive to come to terms with their new lives.</p><p> </p><p>DISCLAIMER: I'm sorry to say this work has been abandoned indefinitely, as I'm no longer a member of the Ragehappy fandom, and don't see my interest being reinvigorated at any point in the future.</p><p>That being said, I do not give anyone permission to continue this work. If you want to write something along the same lines or for the same AU, then by all means: start your own fanfiction. Any and all accounts of plagiarism will be reported.</p><p>For everyone who followed this work since it's inception, and waited long months for another update, I am so sorry. I wish I could have done better by you, and I appreciate all the interest this fic generated.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! This is an intro. I'm posting this work here for fans to be able to follow it more easily. It is originally posted to my tumblr, and I update there as well. Now without further ado, have an angst fest.
> 
> This is a multi-part birthday present for Crow(thegrinningcrow on tumblr), because I am a terrible friend and this was all I could come up with to feed her fixation. And yeah. Also honorable mention to Aib(padalickingood on tumblr) for her glorious AUs and putting up with me alternately screaming and pontificating via her inbox and Skype all my hate and love for this project.
> 
> Based on Padalickingood's "RT Hybrid AU X" on tumblr.

 

“Okay, so, if we record the Let’s Play this afternoon we shouldn’t have to for two weeks.”

“Yeah. Right,” Gavin murmurs. He’s honestly not paying attention to anything Geoff’s saying. Jack says something, but it doesn’t even register to him any more.

He rolls his shoulders under his shirt and tries to ignore the burning sensation flowing down his back. His neck’s stiff, he hasn’t had an appetite in days, and he feels oddly weightless and light-headed. Floaty, even. The worst thing is he honestly has no idea what’s wrong. He took a tumble the week before on the immersion set, sure, but it was just a little thing. Nothing to worry over.

And yet.

Maybe he should go get examined, fear of all things hospital be damned. He can’t even remember his last check-up so it’s probably overdue. It couldn’t hurt, could it? (Actually, yes, it could, because needles hurt and there’s no telling if he needs a shot-he’s not a bloody doctor.)

“…Gav…Dammit, Gavin, pay attention!”

Gavin has about a millisecond to react before Geoff smacks him in the face and flinches back. It doesn’t hurt, it  _doesn’t_ , he tells himself. It really does though and it takes him another minute to shake off the urge to crack his neck or ask for a massage. Or maybe just cry.

He very carefully does not do any of these things, and for a really nice moment it feels like he might be able to handle the situation until the end of the day. Maybe it will even go away if he pushes through it.

“Well?” Geoff demands, eyes wide and driving in his trademark expectant stare.

Right, they were having a meeting. Or about as official of a meeting as they could get short of the office-wide weekly gathering in the kitchen. “Sorry?”

“Can you get two Let’s Plays done by next Tuesday?” Jack asks while he fiddles with the clasps that attach the pop-filter to one of the mics. It has a hole in it and there’s a box Gavin would bet has a replacement sitting on his lap.

Mm, well, if he’s being honest, Gavin isn’t sure. He still hasn’t made the decision to go to the doctor’s yet, and the week’s already half-over. If he does though, he’ll probably take off a day to do it. He shivers; suddenly the room feels much colder.

“Wait a minute,” Geoff interrupts before anyone can say anything, and then a hand enters the brit’s field of vision and cups his forehead. He hisses half-arsedly because somehow Geoff’s even colder than the room, but when he moves to escape, Geoff stops him. He doesn’t sound happy, either, the way he tsks. “Idiot. You’ve got a fever.”

Oh. Well, yeah, that would explain why he wants a thicker coat right now, Gavin understands dimly. Still doesn’t explain why Geoff thinks it’s important enough to interrupt.

“I don’t know why you didn’t say something―you could’ve stayed home!”

Jack chimes in again, and Ray when he walks in, and before Gavin knows it he’s being lead from the office by an annoyed Geoff, pushed into his truck, and then they’re home. Millie’s at school and Griffon’s at work so Geoff makes him drink this weird-tasting medicine and threatens him into sleeping before going back to work.

Gavin’s too tired to feel very bad about making him take care of him.

 

* * *

 

“Gavin still sick?” Michael asked when Geoff came in alone and earlier than usual the next morning. Normally he and Gavin would take a while to make it in.

“Yeah. He didn’t even wake up when Griffon and I went to check on him,” Geoff’s voice betrays the barest hint of worry. When he sees the concerned look on Michael’s face, he manages a smile. Just because Gavin hadn’t stirred since Geoff had made him get some rest didn’t mean anything. It was too soon to worry; the moron probably just really needed to sleep and then he’d be fine. “Don’t worry, I checked that he was still breathing before I left. And it’s Griffon’s day off so she’s keeping an eye on him.”

“Vav’ll be fine,” Ray chimed in while he set up for the first of the day’s recordings. “He always bounces back from these things.”

 

* * *

 

Unfortunately, Ray couldn’t be more wrong. Gavin woke up later that morning with a disorienting feeling of wrongness. The more he shifted, the more it felt like a bunch of air had gotten trapped under his skin. His teeth itched and his eyes wouldn’t really focus when he tried to peer around, but he recognized his pseudo-apartment in the Ramseys’ backyard well enough that it hardly mattered. If he’d been paying better attention he might have noticed how the sheets didn’t so much blur out as shift.

Groaning, he rolled out of bed carefully, so as not to exacerbate his back, and stumbled. He felt horrible. Exhausted and weak. It was all he could do to stay upright and not fall over on the way to the bathroom. It was when he got to the actual doorframe that things got weird. Had it always been so narrow?

Not that it mattered. As long as he got to the toilet where he could vom or something if necessary, then he could work from there. That was the goal, at least, until he tracked movement out of the corner of his eye to the mirror, and stopped dead-still.

Because that―…wasn’t supposed to be there. That was actually pretty unexpected, honestly, and―

 

* * *

 

Griffon heard the scream from in the house and nearly dropped a plate in her surprise. It was horrible, panicked and terrified, and so painful. It sounded like it came from Gavin’s shed and she was already racing to check on him when she realized why it was so unnerving.

It didn’t sound like Gavin.

 

* * *

 

There he’d stood in the mirror, looking surprisingly good for how awful he felt. He didn’t look too pale or flushed, just sort of in between, which shouldn’t have been the case with a fever. He looked awake, too. But more than anything what he noticed was a looming backdrop of brown at his back, which had never been there before.

As he tried to wrap his head around what he was seeing, it―they―twitched. He flinched, fear and confusion ramping up with the sudden realization that whatever it was was mobile, and in response felt the impression of the stubbled wall brushing past him in time with another twitch. When he tried to step to the side, they shifted with him, and that realization made him struggle to swallow down his rising heart.

He could hear his pulse in his ears as he turned, desperately looking for evidence to the contrary. But he turned too quickly and felt himself losing his balance, reached out to right himself in a mad scrabble, and was met by a wall of feathers and resistance, and a sharp pain from where he’d smacked into something. He yelped, startled by so much brown suddenly everywhere and heard a massive clatter as he tried to pull away.

It was chaos but he still remembered very clearly at one point catching sight, in the mirror, which had somehow been cracked, of the open and free-hanging tear in his shirt around the mass of brown feathers. It was one of his favorites, too; a purple polo he’d had since before moving to America.

Gavin reacted violently, not entirely sure what was happening but knowing it was very bad. There was a flurry of feathers and a melt of pain along his shoulders and back, but he eventually found himself wedged painfully into the bathtub, somehow surrounded by the sensation of cool fiberglass and tile. Something was making sharp, broken cooing and loud rustling noises, and the more he struggled to right himself and get out of there back to his room, the more hopelessly stuck he felt. With a sigh he fell back and suppressed a shiver. All he was doing was making it worse. He needed to calm down and figure out how he was stuck and how to fix it.

He might have lost some time, too, because between one glance at the rest of the devastated bathroom―cracked mirror, hygiene products scattered everywhere, the curtain pole literally ripped from the walls and knocked askew and glass from where some sort of bottle broke on the floor―and the next, Griffon was standing in the doorway looking about as bewildered as he felt.

 

* * *

 

The door to Gavin’s shed was shut, but it and the apprehension over what she might see on the other side didn’t stop her. When she glanced around the messy main room, everything was as it normally was. Gavin’s conspicuous absence only hammered the dread in her chest home.

She was about to call out, maybe see if he was in the crawl space messing with the heater, when she heard something from the bathroom. There was a hollow plastic thud, like something had fallen, followed by a more quiet and tired version of the gut-wrenching noise from earlier. The closer she crept, though, the more she could pick out what almost sounded like…chirping.

Did a bird get trapped inside?

Not that that’s what she found. Instead what she found was a wrecked bathroom and Gavin lying in the bathtub, looking panicky and winded. Impossibly, he also looked like he was sporting a pair of prosthetic wings bent at uncomfortable-looking angles(especially if there was a harness under his shirt) and half-crumbled under him. One of them was extended and where a faux-joint thickened the plumage, it was wedged between the bath faucet and the tap. With the way he was laying, his toes were actually the highest point of his body. As she watched, his eyes seemed to track her, widen, and then he started to thrash, looking for all the world like he was too top-heavy to get out of there.

The urge to laugh was a near thing, but the panic she caught in his eyes was enough to ground her.

 

* * *

 

“Gavin, what―?”

“Griffon!” He squawked and redoubled his efforts to stand, though not because he was happy to see her. Actually, the idea of someone, even someone he knew and trusted like Griffon, seeing him like this sent a fresh wave of terror singing right to his heart. Now he wished there wasn’t a wall at his back so he could turn around and run away. He struggled, beating back against the wall, and trying to propel himself upwards, and the strange cooing noises from earlier started back up.

“Gavin! Whoa, stop!” Griffon held her hands out in front of her, palms cautioning, and stepped carefully into the already crowded room. “Stop!  _Stop!_  I won’t hurt you! I want to help! Come on, Gavin, breathe with me.”

Slowly, he did manage to calm down, and with Griffon’s help he climbed out of the bathtub, toed his way around the mess on the floor, and back into his room where there was more space. He still had to fight down the urge to run like hell and hope it was a dream, because he knew at the very least it would worry Griffon even more, and because he knew the problem would just dog him the whole way.

If not for the weird instinctive urge to keep her in his sights, Gavin wouldn’t have caught Griffon pulling out her phone. She caught his apprehension in his expression and went all soothing again. “I’m just going to call Geoff and ask him to come home, okay?”

Gavin blinked as he felt what seemed almost like the hairs on the back of his neck stand up, except all over his body. The feathers puffing up tickled and he suppressed another shudder. “What? No, I― don’t―” he struggled to protest before sighing and backing away a little, head lowered in shame and nerves. It was completely preposterous but… “I don’t want to be outnumbered.”

Griffon inhaled sharply, like he’d slapped her. “Outnumbered? Gav… No, look at me.” He obliged, if only just. “We would never hurt you, you know that, right? We’ve been friends for years; I consider you family. And so does Geoff. That’s why he needs to come home so we can figure this out. Okay?”

“I just,” the urge to argue was huge, but he cut himself off, afraid of how he was behaving. It was so bizarre, completely mad, honestly. Geoff had been nothing if not kind and there for him when he had a problem. They’d shared a home for years and Gavin always thought of where the Ramseys were as where he belonged, even on all his travels. But despite knowing he could trust them, there was still this overriding precaution clinging to the back of his mind and overshadowing his reason. “It’s hard to explain, sorry. Go ahead.”

Her phone rang before she could dial, though. Apparently Millie had gone to the nurse’s office feeling sick. She had a fever and they wanted Griffon to come get her. Something must be going around, she said after hanging up and now trying to dial Geoff. A bunch of kids had gone home early that day. “I’ll just get Geoff to go get her on his way back.”

“Hey babe,” the selfsame man’s voice filled the room as the call connected and Griffon placed it on speaker. “How’s everything? Has he woken up yet?”

Griffon sighed. “Yes, and you’re going to want to get home ASAP. Pick Millie up from school on your way. She isn’t feeling well.”

As she spoke, Gavin began to root around and fidget, playing with his sleep pants. Now that he was paying attention he’d noticed where they were stretched taut away from him and the tight, uncomfortably cramped feeling at the base of his spine. He wasn’t actually proud, though, of the realization that something strange was happening in his trousers, nor did he want to make any innuendoes about it. Instead he felt curiosity mixed with dread.

“What?! Why?” Geoff asked, immediately sensing the urgency in his wife’s voice. “Griffon, what’s going on? What’s wrong?”

Griffon’s voice was about as hesitant as Gavin had ever heard it. “I’d really rather you come home and see for yourself but, it’s Gavin. Geoff, he has wings.”

“And a tail, Griffon,” said lad chimed in sheepishly from where he was doing his best to inspect over his shoulder the long, delicate cluster of feathers that stuck out between his folded-down pants and the hem of his shirt. Dignity already long-since damned.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Geoff means well, he really does.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, have some pain. ^^
> 
> Idk, man. On one hand Gavin's really out of character. On the other, he sort of needs to be to set the basis for this story.

After hanging up, when Griffon took a step closer, Gavin took a step back, hunching a bit to keep his balance. He still couldn’t quite peg what was making him so shy and space-conscious, but he couldn’t deny that having room to move and different options―options for _what_ was anyone’s guess―was helping a lot with calming down and not losing his head.

He had wings. And a tail. And _feathers_. Jesus.

He ran a hand through his hair, and was surprised to come away with downy filaments wedged between his fingers. Immediately he began to push his hands through his hair then scoop all the feathers into his hand. Most of it came away, but when he felt something harder, like a twig nestled against the nape of his neck, he got worried. But when he tried to pull it out, it hurt, like we was pulling some of his own hair out. It was probably just caught on some, though, he realized, so he ran his fingers along it to check it out more closely. It was pretty smooth and tapered, but when he felt along to the thinner end, his fingers brushed across something softer than he remembered his hair ever feeling, but sleek, like it felt to run a feather through his fingers. That thought made him stop, very briefly, dead.

In a flurry of feathers and wind from where his wings stirred the air, he buried his hands in his hair, and began to frantically comb through it. The more he looked, the more feathers he found, and the more he was convinced that that was what they were. However when he tried to pull one out, the sharp sensation of pain, and an overwhelming feeling that he shouldn’t stopped him. It was imperative, even, that he didn’t.

An itching started up in his his shoulders and from there into a space just above them he was only just starting to become aware of as more than just an unwanted weight tugging on his spine. But the longer he left it unchecked the sharper it got, and the more he wanted to do something about it. He felt restless and the...his...wings twitched briefly open.

Before he fully understood it, he had a finger tucked up under the edge of a feather on his right wing, the other hand holding the appendage steady, and he very carefully curled his finger, nudging the feather. With a gentle creak it seemed to pop into place, and simultaneously relieve a shard of discomfort right where the feather was. There was another just down the wing, and the relief he felt twitching it into place was amazing. And there were even more across the wing that he could still reach.

* * *

Griffon watched, non-plussed, as Gavin pulled his wing towards him, and began to run his fingers along it. She felt a little weird watching him like that. Every so often he would make a soft, inhuman noise of content and the way he focused on the task struck her as, at least a little, intimate.

The fact that he had moved away from her, though, stuck with her. That wasn’t like Gavin. Then again, nothing like this had ever happened before, so she understood his fear maybe getting the better of him. But the strange noises and now how focused he seemed on the feathers concerned her.

Gavin picked at things, yes. He liked having something in his hands, something to do. She had taken advantage of that time and again for little projects around the house. That was so typical of him that it made her pause. Because she would’ve expected Gavin to not even be able to touch the wings―like anyone else. But there he was. And the more she watched, the more it reminded her of a bird running it’s beak through it’s feathers.

She heard, then felt, the audible shift of the A/C unit coming on and gusting down onto her and the bed. A subtle shift made her look down to the mess of sheets and what she saw surprised her. Nestled in the gentle folds and rolls of cloth were downy little feathers. It looked a little like a feather pillow had exploded all over the bed, and as the air circulated, the feather’s shifted, revealing a dark stain.

Griffon put two and two together, eyes widening with realization, before she turned back to a preoccupied Gavin and called his name. Gavin stilled, his eyes shifting from his wing to her, but otherwise unmoving.

“Can I have a look at your wings?” Griffon asked, and it’s immediately apparent that that’s the wrong thing to ask.

Gavin’s shoulders pulled back, his neck extends. His wing slipped out of his hand and shifted back with a flick. Both of them shrugged, arching with tension and puffed up and he bent his knees to drop his stance. He looked, alarmingly, like a bird she saw fighting a snake once. Except his eyes, from where he peered sidelong at her, were wide with fear, and he was shifting toward the door.

Griffon tried to rectify it, holding out her hands like she did in the bathroom and softening her voice. “I’m not going to hurt you, I just―...Gavin, I think you might be bleeding. I just want to check, okay?”

Gavin didn’t say anything, only stepped back, his eyes going wider.

“No, no wait, it’s okay,” Griffon was quick to soothe. “Remember? I’m not going to hurt you. I didn’t before and I won’t now. I just want to see, and help if I’m right.”

* * *

As soon as Griffon had asked to see his back, his wings, Gavin had felt that overwhelming urge to flee again. He’d almost forgotten about her being there, but just the thought of turning his back on her, now that he was paying attention, sent shards of panic up into his throat. It was so violently unexpected he thought he might choke and had to swallow.

When he’d been stuck in the bathtub, he’d had to rely on her to pull him out. That time she hadn’t done anything and backed off immediately. But that time he’s also had her in his line of sight the whole time, and could kick her if he wanted to. But if he let her check his back then he wouldn’t have either of these things.

Still, this was _Griffon_ , one of his closest friends and one of the nicest and gentlest people he knew. There was no reason to be afraid of her. She just wanted to help, like she always did.

“O-okay,” he decided, before fear could get the better of him.

True to form, Griffon still moved slowly, holding his gaze the entire time she got closer. He was thankful for that, because even that much had him shivering and wanting to back away. Honestly, the whole situation made him want to run out the door, hopefully catch his wings on the door and just leave them behind, like a headband with bunny ears being knocked from his head by a low doorframe.

If only it were that simple. He’d touched them, had felt the smooth feathers and moved them. But more importantly, he’d felt his hand through them, had felt the relief of slipping them back into place. And every time he moves he felt the weight of them in his back.

He couldn’t run from them, they were stuck to him like glue. All they’d do is go right along with him. Besides that, he didn’t fully feel up to running. Now that the adrenaline and fear from the bathroom incident were being recycled out and he could think a little better, he could feel himself flagging. His stomach was starting to cramp up, his wings were starting to feel heavier and heavier, and itched and stung towards the bases. Plus, he just felt so tired. Being so alert was dragging at him, and he honestly wouldn’t mind taking a nap, sorting all of this out later.

Things are rarely that simple, though.

Griffon stopped in front of him, long enough that Gavin shifted uncomfortably with the dueling urges to tell her to hurry up so he could go sleep, or just run away. But before he could say anything, she held her hand out, palm up, with a hopeful and trademark sleepy smile, like a peace offering. He felt silly for the small flutter of unease it caused him, and how silly he was acting. Again, this was Griffon. He took her hand, warmed by the gentle squeeze he got in return, before she let go and stepped around him.

* * *

Immediately he felt his hair and feathers stand on end, especially because he couldn’t feel her, and couldn’t pinpoint where she was. When he finally did feel her pulling on his shirt, it helped, but just knowing she was so close to him made his wings shift and twitch. She stopped and asked if he was okay and he had to swallow around the urge to scream “bloody no I’m not!” and instead answered, “Sorry, no...no, I am. Go ahead.”

“I was right,” Griffon hushed, clearly not happy about it. She described the area around the base of his wings as really raw and sore. “We’re probably going to have to cut this shirt off so we don’t open the wound back up again.”

“But! This is one of my favorite shirts!” He cried, whirling around to face her, as that particular bit of news set in. Somehow the notion of Griffon with scissors in her hand just made him even more nervous. With the motion, though, he felt a tug of resistance, then heard a sharp rip. He felt the back of his shirt give way, and a fresh breeze waft up his back.

“Well, I hate to break it to you, but it’s pretty much trashed, already,” Griffon winced. “I think if we cut holes in one of Geoff’s old shirts you could fit in it?”

It wasn’t like Gavin had much in the way of options, so he trailed her into the house and accepted the well-worn pile of shirts she dumped in his arms when he was more preoccupied with not hitting anything with his wings. She made him sit when she noticed him teetering, but he opted for sitting backwards on a kitchen chair, instead of trying to fit in the bathroom again. He had to struggle, again, with the urge to run when she sat behind him especially when she cut his shirt away completely, and winced and squirmed while she cleaned and bandaged it. “I’m not surprised you didn’t notice it; the feathers were probably cushioning it.”

They had enough time leftover for Griffon to choose and cut a big “x” across the back of one of the shirts. Gavin still insisted on putting it on himself and was doing well enough until he felt a sharp jag of pain in one of his wing joints and lashed out. He got stuck and had to rely on Griffon to get it the rest of the way on without trapping his wings. Only the thought of hurting himself further kept him totally still despite not being able to see what Griffon was doing, again.

Geoff had already been on his way when Griffon called, so it wasn’t long before he had proof staring him in the face. Apparently he’d come down with something, too, and was happy to come home and rest, even if his wife and friend were trying to play a prank on him or something. When he and Millie arrived, though, it was something else.

Gavin, to his credit, hadn’t run screaming from the house when he heard the front door open, but he did duck back into the kitchen and hide behind the partition wall. Griffon disappeared into the entrance, her suggestion that Millie go take a nap a little too loud to just be coincidental. It was Geoff who found him, and it took everything in Gavin’s power not to shriek when the other man slunk into the kitchen, causing Gavin to jump and nearly upend a chair. Geoff took one look at him, made a comment about being too sober and sick to “deal with this shit” and went to grab a beer.

* * *

Geoff really did need a drink, or he did about as much as anyone else in his situation might. On top of a headache, he seemed to be hallucinating. When he’d walked into the kitchen, he hadn’t expected Gavin to be there, much less a hulking feathery mass tucked up against the wall like a bruise or some kind of goober. But that’s what’d happened, and then Gavin had done a very Gavin-esque thing and almost caused a fucking catastrophe.

He actually did knock into the kitchen table when Griffon walked into the room, and, with a screech, knocked a mason jar from one of her projects right off with a wing, sending it smashing all across the kitchen floor. Instead of an apology, though, he just screamed again, high and scared, and ran out of the room, taking out a wall hanging in the process.

“The fuck!” Geoff swore and danced back from the worst of the mess, lifting his beer and trying to avoid crunching any glass underfoot. Since he still had shoes on, he could afford to, but Griffon wasn’t as lucky. It didn’t seem to stop her when he started towards the living room to bring that little shit back to clean up and she pulled him back.

“Geoff, stop,” she warned him, the tone of her voice making him pause long enough for her to explain. “Something’s wrong with him. He’s not...the Gavin we’re used to.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Honestly, Geoff was just considering saying fuck it and going to get him anyway, but his urge to make Gavin apologize to Griffon for ruining her work and putting her in harm’s way, and his automatic concern for Gavin were pretty evenly matched, and when he met Griffon’s gaze her eyes were hard, and unyielding.

“It means he isn’t thinking like himself,” she explained, more and more worry sinking into her voice. “Geoff, I found him stuck in the tub in his bathroom and when I tried to help him he tried to get away. If I go anywhere near him too quickly he backs up.” Her eyes swept to the direction Gavin fled, as if she could see him through the wall. “He’s scared. Terrified, even.”

“Scared?” Considering the fact that the guy had suddenly grown wings, and a tail, if Geoff’s eyes weren’t deceiving him, fear wouldn’t be all that far-fetched for anyone in his position. But the way she said it made Geoff pause.

“Like an injured animal. No, shut up, listen to me,” she hushed, seeing her husband’s eyes roll. “You saw him just now. Gavin has better manners than to run away without apologizing.” She shifted, eyeing the ground for debris, and grimaced before stepping away toward the pantry, probably to get a broom. “I think it’s affecting his brain, too. I don’t think he can really control it.” She emerged from the pantry holding a broom aloft before gesturing after the be-winged brit. “I can clean this up myself. Go in there and make sure he’s okay.” Geoff was hardly going to argue, but her voice carried after him as he stepped through the threshold. “And husband? Be gentle with him.”

* * *

Gavin had been pacing a tight loop around the coffee table when Geoff entered, but stepped back hurriedly to the other side when he saw the other man. With Griffon’s warning still ringing in his ears, Geoff found himself staring at Gavin, watching the way his hands wring together, how his brow folded and he bit his lip. When Geoff moved around the side of the couch to sit, Gavin’s eyes darted away and he shifted even closer to the entertainment center, his hands coming up in a placating gesture.

“‘m sorry! I didn’t mean t’do that!” He exclaimed, his arms flashing out in aborted gestures to match his explanation. “I’m jus’ not used to…it. Is Griffon angry?”

“You’re fine!” she assured from in the kitchen. “I didn’t like how it was coming along, anyway.”

Reassured, and with Geoff planted on the couch alternately sipping his beer and holding it to his head, Gavin began to pace.

His path ran back and forth perpendicular to where Geoff sat, and so close to the entertainment center that the brush of his wings against the wood was audible. The more Geoff watched, though, the more he noticed. Like whenever he shifted on the couch, making the leather sigh, Gavin’s wings would lift. Whenever Gavin got to the end of his rotation, he’d already start turning two steps early and look at either the front or back doors depending on what he was facing, then back at Geoff before starting again. And he always turned towards Geoff.

The longer this went on, as they both waited for Griffon to join the discussion, the more messy and shabby his wings got, the bigger they got, and the more Geoff began to accept he wasn’t just having a bad reaction to drinking beer after taking some ibuprophen at work. The wings twitched, on their own in a way that was fluid. He couldn’t see any pulleys or hinges, and the feathers were layered so naturally there was no way they were some sort of prosthetic. Gavin really did have wings.

Goddamn, his head hurt.

“There’s no way you can go to work tomorrow,” he realized, picking at the label on his bottle.

“What? Why?” Gavin stopped and demanded, his wings tensing automatically.

Geoff winced as the volume and tone did a number on his head. “Well for one, last I checked people don’t just grow wings overnight.” He pointed to the selfsame wings to drive him point and took another sip. “And, no offense dude, but you still look like warmed-up shit.” Which earned him another indignant squawk and a sting of pain through his temporal lobe.

“Oh, thanks, Geoffrey!”

“He’s right, though,” Griffon chimed in as she entered the room and leaned over the back of the couch. Geoff snaked a hand up to wrap his fingers around one of her wrists before she shifted her am and laced their fingers together. He inclined his head just to meet her gaze for a moment proud and relieved for the support. “You look like you’re going to pass out.”

And he did. His shoulders were hunched, every step was heavy, and his skin was pale. Add to that how his shirt hung off him, and he almost seemed gaunt, especially with the shadows under his eyes. “You should sit down, dude.”

“No, I’d...I’d rather be standing,” Gavin waved him off. Another moment of indecisive pacing, though, and he’d retreated to the arm chair closest to the back door and perched on the arm of it. He buried his face in his hands with a groan when he had to shift to make space for the wings. “What’m I going to do?”

Geoff didn’t have an answer, and he said as much at the same time he’d reached a conclusion in his head. “I don’t know. It’s not like any of us have ever seen something like this before, and it’s not like we’re going to have all the answers if we sit here and agonize about it. We should take a break, get some rest, think about it tomorrow.

Gavin agreed and retreated back to his room out back. Griffon needed to go pick up some new materials to re-do her project, so she left Geoff along in the living room to watch tv and keep an eye on Gavin and Millie. Before she left though, Geoff couldn’t resist asking “was he wearing my shirt?” Which earned him a laugh, and a promise from Griffon that she would cook dinner tonight if he didn’t say anything to Gavin. With his headache resisting all attempts to soothe it, and even morphing into a full-blown migraine, it sounded like a good deal.

* * *

Gavin had spent the whole night shifting from position to position looking for some way to lie that was comfortable. So, when the door slammed open and the shouting started, he was only dozing fitfully, and woke up with a snap.

“Gavin, you son of a bitch! What the hell did you do to me!”

“Geoff! Stop, you’re going to scare him!”

“Damn right I am! I’m going to punch him in his fucking dickhead!”

To the rest of his days he will never fully understand what happened in that moment, or how he managed to get from tangled in the covers to poised on top of the wardrobe, his wings fanned out across the wall and ceiling and bristling. But he will remember the fear that galvanized him, made his heart flutter in his chest like a drumroll. He’ll remember his throat being burned raw from screaming. And he’ll remember Geoff looking angry and punching the wardrobe. Maybe it was the angle, or the incongruous emotion on his otherwise dozily relaxed face, but Geoff looked peculiar. In the wake of the hollow crack, silence descended.

Geoff’s gaze fell and Gavin followed it to where his fist still pressed into the wood paneling, risking falling or shifting into range to be dragged down to peer over the edge of the wardrobe. The elder man seemed to gather himself, breathing with exertion through his mouth before shutting it self-consciously. Gavin stayed tense, his mind fluttering to the odds of jumping over Geoff and getting to the door before he could catch him, meanwhile his eyes tracked every movement, from the rise and fall of his shoulders, to the release and lowering of his fist. He was so fixated that when Geoff finally looked back up at him, he jumped, threw himself back against the wall. His wings snapped, thudding painfully against the unyielding plaster and he made a shrill noise.

“Fuck,” Geoff whispered as he stepped back and his hands came up in the universal sign for “unarmed.” Gavin didn’t move, instead opting to stare balefully down on the rest of the dimly-lit room. At least up there people couldn’t reach him so easily. “Dude, I’m so fucking sorry, I don’t know what that was. I freaked out, because, well.”

Because what? The remorse and uncertainly in Geoff eyes finally got through the fog of adrenaline and fear to him and Gavin found himself studying Geoff carefully. Apparently it hadn’t been the angle, because he still looked...off. He realised why when his friend averted his gaze and went to scratch his ear self-consciously, and instead his hand fell on an appendage that was decidedly not human. Now that he knew what to look for, Gavin picked out another ear, and two bony growths peeking out of his ruffled bedhead.

“It’s happening to you, too?!” he squawked and relaxed his wings, though he didn’t climb down. What the bloody hell was going on that both of them were being affected? And why had Geoff run into his room yelling? It wasn’t like any of the times they’d play-fought before; he’d looked genuinely pissed off, which Gavin had only seen maybe two other times, both because he’d done something to deserve it. This time, though, he couldn’t think of anything.

“I, I guess?” Geoff lifted his hands. “I woke up like this, man! I’ve got no fucking clue what’s happening. I don’t even know if this is contagious and I should have Griffon and Millie stay away for a while, or what.”

“Like hell you could.” Gavin was surprised to find Griffon standing just this side of the door, wearing a guarded look she dropped to send Geoff a stinkface. He fought back the urge to spread his wings again, though. It occurred to him, the more aware he became of his surroundings, that the sunlight filtering through the door and gaps of the blinds was bright and strong, instead of watery or orange like it would be around dawn. Also, Geoff was already dressed. How long had he slept, he wondered, his thoughts compounded by the hollow ache in his stomach.

Before Geoff or Griffon could get into it, or Gavin could suggest breakfast, Geoff’s distinctive screaming ringtone cut the silence. He dug his phone out of his pocket, checking the screen with a frown which only deepened before he answered it.

“Caiti?” he asked. His frown morphed, gradually deepening from just mild confusion to outright concern. Gavin was about to ask what was wrong when he pulled the phone from his ear and hit speaker.

“―went in our room and won’t come out. It sounded like he was in pain, and then I heard things being moved around and breaking but now I―" Caiti’s voice filtered into the room, fear making her speak faster. Paired with her accent, they all had to struggle to understand, but it was obvious something was very wrong.

"Whoa, whoa," Geoff interrupted when she took a breath. "Calm down. Tell me what's wrong with him."

"I'm not sure!" She exclaimed, her voice nearly squeaking. "He won't talk to me anymore. And nothing he was saying before made any sense!"

"What was he saying before?"

"He...he said he was afraid he might hurt me," she swallowed audibly over the line. "When I asked him to come out. And he told me he wasn't sure what was happening but that he loved me? That was right before he stopped answering. I tried to pick the lock, but he has something heavy up against it so I can't get in."

"How much do you want to bet that this and that," Griffon gestured to both of them and then the phone in the ensuing shocked silence, "aren't just a coincidence?"

As Geoff listened, his mouth had pressed into a hard line. "Okay, I think I know what’s happening. Don’t worry, if I’m right, he’s going to be okay. I'll be there in ten minutes, alright? Fifteen tops."

"Oh, thank you!"

 

"And Caiti?" Geoff added. "Whatever you do, _don't_ go in that room. Trust me, you're safer outside."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cliffhangers are fun, huh?
> 
> If my end notes from the last chapter aren't up, I'm ficcyshit on Tumblr and I am a gab-aholic. Come talk to me?


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Geoff's kinda shit at reassuring people. Can you tell?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay! I'm trash! And for those of you who aren't following me on tumblr, the reasons mostly hinge around my recently-abysmal health and my overall financial situation. I'm getting treated now though so things should drastically improve!

When he looked back on it, it was hard to settle the moment into any clear definitions. All he really remembered was anger. And there, in the anger, were the briefest of impressions. Gavin falling out of bed in a graceless heap when Geoff threw open the door. A swell of aggression when he caught the movement, specifically the flourish of brown. His hands shaking with barely suppressed rage as he followed Gavin’s weird little hop-skitter across the room. Why wouldn’t the dickhead stay still? He was only wasting time! He remembered balking when Gavin’s wings―his dumb, stupid, _huge_ wings―spread to match how wide his eyes got. The perfect ring of white around the outside making them look like a fuckin’ bullseye. But he never fully wavered, not even when Gavin jumped, wings spreading, buffeting. Nor when he somehow managed to slither and crawl onto the wardrobe.

It was only when a sharp sting of pain cracked across his knuckles that Geoff could finally hear again over the rush of blood in his ears. Gavin was crying out. Confused, Geoff had looked to the source of the pain and everything clicked into place. He’d punched the fucking wardrobe. The evidence was staring him straight in the face. And when he looked up, Gavin’s expression made him want to flinch. Because even though his immediate response was to demand to know what the _fuck_ thought it was smart to scare him, he already knew exactly what he was looking at.

Shit.

The impulse to hit Gavin had never been all that foreign to Geoff. He wanted to hit him all the time; when the fucker forgot himself in a Let’s Play and went after Geoff, when he did something irresponsible around or concerning Millie, and when things got a certain point past “out of hand.” Both of them were physical guys, had pretty much always been, so their friendship was one of easy comfort often invading one another’s space. They could flop all over each other and play fought often. But that was all it was, _play_ fighting. Being in the army had more or less worn away his more violent tendencies, until Geoff rarely started fights, and being a dad had only mellowed him further. So the fact that Geoff had hit a wardrobe, had been planning on really hitting Gavin…it scared him.

He backed away immediately, noting how tense and wild Gavin looked with his wings fully extended. They sagged, though, and scraped audibly against the ceiling when ever he shifted his stance. He looked uncomfortable, but like the discomfort was too distant over some other sensation for him to notice, his neck was forced at a weird angle with the limited space and Geoff more than anything wanted to tell him to breathe already and come down. But he could see the lad’s eyes get impossibly wider when he almost did it, like he knew, so he backed off.

Just in time to have his stomach fall. Just in time for his phone to ring.

* * *

Obviously whatever was happening to Geoff and Gavin was also hitting Jack. The timing was just too stupid to be coincidental, and that thought made Geoff really nervous about the fate of his daughter. But if she was going to change, then there was next to nothing he could do about it right now. She’d already come home sick so either she would change or she wouldn’t. And it wouldn’t take much longer, anyway. He, he had to remember that…

Getting violent wouldn’t solve anything. It was still hard as hell not to kick the bed frame when the call ended. But he managed to avoid it by walking away, literally, right past Griffon and back into the house. He wasn’t even completely sure where he was going until he stopped outside Millie’s door and carefully eased it open. It was hard to tear himself away, but he did once he knew she was sleeping, and easily side-stepped Griffon.

His feet took him back to their room, Griffon trailing a few steps behind, and he busied himself with pulling the case of the top shelf of their closet while she watched. It was a steel-plated affair, none of that cheap-o buffed-chrome plastic, and everything looked in order from the outside. There were two separate lock systems-an actual padlock and a coded lock-that kept it from being opened by just anyone. Only he and his wife had the code to it, and they were the only ones who knew where the key was hidden. Speaking of which, as he was about to stand and get it, Griffon slid it into his grateful line of sight.

Geoff had known Jack for years, had founded a ridiculously lucrative business venture with him, had traveled all over the world with him, and honestly considered him one of his closest friends in a company full of them. At the risk of sounding like a teenage girl, Jack was one of those friends Geoff fully anticipated knowing forever and one of the few people in the entire world he trusted with his daughter.

“You really think you’re going to need that?” Griffon asked. From her tone alone, he could tell her arms were folded close and her expression was pinched. And for good reason. He pulled out a few things before running through a cursory inspection, sighting along the muzzle, releasing and packing the magazine back into place, cocking it once, and then slid the clip free to begin loading it while he thought his answer over.

Geoff didn’t know much about the situation, of course, but he wasn’t blind. Gavin clearly wasn’t in his right mind, and Geoff was really trying to be. If Jack felt worried enough to barricade himself in a room then who the hell was Geoff to question it? He’d much sooner pull out all the stops to try and help him. If Jack was in trouble, Geoff wasn’t going to be caught with his pants down. And while normally guns in any situation was a bad idea, Geoff trusted his aim. He knew guns, but more importantly he knew how to handle them under pressure.

“Yeah,” he stepped over the case to grab a jacket out of the closet. A cold front had swept in and turned Austin chilly and damp over the week, so he wouldn’t get any weird looks, and it would be perfect to hide his…assets. “I do. Watch Gavin and Millie for me?” A touch of hunger made him reconsider, and he put the case away before slipping into the hall, shrugging into the jacket. “Make sure he eats, too. He’s already a fuckin’ twink, he doesn’t need to lose any weight.”

“I will,” she assured as he snagged a banana from the kitchen. He just didn’t have time for anything more. Before he could step out the door, though, her hand wrapped around his arm. “Hey, be careful, okay? And call me, ASAP.”

It was the only clue Griffon would ever drop about how worried she really was, and Geoff could barely smile in response before pressing a kiss to her cheek, a silent promise, and flicking his hood up.

* * *

The drive over to Jack’s was spent cursing the weather, and grudgingly slowing down where the rain collected in great puddles on the road and seemingly refused to drain away. He’d set the gun across the passenger seat and studiously ignored it because A) he didn’t need any unnecessary attention from anyone wondering why the fuck he wasn’t watching the road and B) he just…really didn’t need to think about it.

Not about his immediate response being to grab a gun, or what that said about him, because jesus fuck, what if he had to pull the trigger on Jack? Not about what would happen if he actually needed it, or if he could even use it. Not about whatever the hell was happening to Gavin. And _really_ not about what we was going to tell Matt and Burnie.

Oh god, Matt and Burnie.

Christ, he had a headache.

* * *

Geoff parked on the street in front of their house and only checked himself before he just hopped the curb to save his rims. Judging from the empty driveways slipping past on his way through the neighborhood, most of the breadwinners were already gone for the day, though a buick skipping past with a frenzied-looking schmuck behind the wheel gave him the perfect window for his stomach to drop, and then to take a deep, centering breath.

He grabbed the gun, because he already decided to bring it in the first place, so there was little reason to leave it alone in the car, and stuck it in the shoulder holster hidden under his jacket. Checking his hood was still up, he made his way up the walk and inside once Caiti answered his knock. She looked frazzled and pale and only offered a pinched “it got quiet a while ago” before leaning against the wall like she physically needed the support. She didn’t follow him down the hall, but he could feel her eyes as he tested the give of the door, made a decision, and shouldered it open. Something on the other side overbalanced with an audible chink, and he stilled. Nothing else moved that he could hear (and he could hear the fucking fridge humming all the way on the other side of the house in the kitchen) so he heaved it apart more.

His hands itched towards his gun but the risk of Caiti seeing and freaking out wasn’t worth it. He had no way to explain without scaring her, and he honestly didn’t blame her. Just because he wasn’t willing to take chances didn’t mean shit to the increased foot traffic going through his head and flashing up the mental image of him leveling a pistol at his best friend like some sort of horrific .gif he just wanted to stop. Even if he had no idea what he’d find on the other side, he decided to forego it, and mentally crossed his fingers before squeezing through the gap.

Just from a glance it was obvious Jack wasn’t in the main bedroom, even though it was dark, with the blinds drawn tight and thin light filtered through the cracks and outlined the chaos in watery shadows. Geoff was careful not to take his eyes off the middle of the room, even going so far as to reach back and fumble the door’s lock blind instead of turning his back. The itch to draw the gun was strong, and sent him back to memories from basic, and his one tour of service, but he held off. It seemed stupid to draw it just because he felt a little jumpy.

The more he looked, the more easily he could pick out the mess through the gloom. It definitely wasn’t up to Jack’s usual standards of neatness but not nearly as bad as Geoff had feared: most of the furniture had been shoved wantonly against the door, resulting in everything on top of them toppling onto the floor like a bunch of dominoes. Even the bed, frame and all, was adrift in the middle of the room, like Jack had given up on adding it to the barricade. There were also feathers everywhere, just like Gavin’s room, but from the three splintered lines he noticed were etched into the top of the dresser, he was more willing to bet this time around they were from a gutted pillow. Gavin didn’t have claws, and neither did Geoff, which meant this was probably an all-new kind of bullshit, which was just…great. Really got his heart pumping. Awesome.

Jack wasn’t in the walk-in closet when he checked, and the part of him that had worried that Jack had somehow snuck out got a little louder. But he still had to sweep the en-suite bathroom, so he ignored it and tried the knob. Jack, must have thought the one on the bedroom door was enough because it was unlocked and opened easily. Steeling himself, Geoff leaned cautiously around it, calling a “Jack?” before he’d even gotten the door halfway open, like with the closet.

There was a muffled shuffling noise, quick and small, chased immediately by Jack’s signature high-pitched fear voice. “Geoff?! What are you-? You need to leave!” But it was too late. Geoff had already stepped fully into the room and taken it all in by the time Jack’s voice took on a warbling timbre, like the Ramsey’s dogs would when they whined in harmony. “ _Now!_ ”

It wasn’t pretty, and it took a moment for Geoff to take it all in and get up enough courage for more than stunned silence. There was blood, yes, matted onto a dinky little hand-towel on the counter and if he looked closely he could make out some smeared across the tan-colored walls. There was another mess, yes, with towels and washcloths spilling out of one of the cabinets onto the tile, with a hairdryer hanging by its cord from the outlet, with water splashed over the floor, counter, and the mirror. The water was even still running.

And there was Jack, sitting in profile with his back against the wall next to the toilet, his knees drawn up, and his hands clutching his shins. Geoff managed to catch the painful-looking way they dug in, through his jeans, staining a darkened streak in the denim before Jack twisted to look at him. He looked gaunt, and his face held a thin veneer of either sweat or water, that made it shine dimly and matted the hair at his temples and darkened his beard.

Speaking of Jack’s hair, it was definitely longer. Not a bunch, but enough that his beard, which had been recently trimmed, was suddenly a lot bushier than it had been yesterday, and Jack was developing a little bit of a cowlick. Most notable were the sideburns, where it had grown out so far that Geoff couldn’t even see his ears and on a hunch Geoff checked again. Sure enough, he could see two round shapes peeking through the locks, made notable by their subtly different shade of…what should he even call it now? Fur? Hair?

That didn’t matter much when Jack’s eyes caught light from the vanity bulbs over the mirror and flashed an alarming shade of bronze―obviously just reflected light mixed with his usual shit-brown, Geoff thought, or when he opened his mouth and Geoff glimpsed sharp ivory points and first heard the rasp fostering in the bigger man’s voice like an oncoming headcold. The the blood-coated and clawed hand he lifted to warn Geoff away was just the icing on the cake.

It was the look Jack wore like a neon sign that so clearly enunciated that he had no fucking clue what was happening or what to do that galvanized Geoff and made him push his apprehension aside to focus on the actual conversation. Jack still sounded like himself, still sounded like Geoff’s best friend and that was something he could wrap his head around better, instead of the fangs and whatnot. Geoff could bicker on autopilot, anyway, which would hopefully buy him enough time to calm his racing heart and the conflicting urges to shoot or run.

When the actual words caught up to him though, he planted himself firmly in the doorway. “ _Fuck_ that. I’m not leaving until I find a way to help your sorry ass.”

It seemed to have the exact opposite effect Geoff wanted because instead of just agreeing, Jack dropped his hand and went back to grabbing his shins and staring blindly at the opposite wall with the glummest fucking look on his face. His voice was weirdly quiet, hushed and stressed in a way that made Geoff shift his weight back, suddenly wavering, and longing for escape. “Geoff, don’t, okay? I’m afraid I’m going to hurt you!”

That tore it. Geoff sighed before taking a deep breath. No, the older man was not going to run away. Not when Jack looked so scared but still managed to be worried about Geoff’s well-being. He wasn’t an asshole. “Okay, okay. Calm down, man. Just breathe or something.” Jack shook his head, looked like he was about to say something, so Geoff yanked his zipper down and shoved his jacket aside enough to show the gun. “Look, see? I didn’t exactly come unarmed. You won’t be able to.”

The honest look of sheer relief on Jack’s face was what drove it all home. Somehow Geoff knew that Jack was thinking more about himself than Geoff in that moment and it scared him more than the fangs and blood. Jack shifted a bit, probably trying to find a more comfortable way to sit. The reason became obvious when he lifted his ass and a long, sinuous tail tipped with a darger ginger tuft of…fur swept across the tiles into view. Geoff watched it curl around Jack, a little beside himself, and ignored the brief flair of discomfort near his tailbone that mirrored the one that had woken him up that morning, when he’d rolled over in his sleep.

For lack of a better topic, he blurted, “You…you fucking look like shit, dude.” He winced as soon as it came out, and his hand tightened on the doorknob.

Jack shifted again until he was sitting up more with his legs stretched out and his arms crossed. “I know- something’s happening to me, but I don’t know what. I just…wound up like this. I can’t…I can’t let Caiti see me.”

“I don’t know man, I think she’d probably just want to pet you a bunch. …And ask you to scratch her back.” At Jack’s confused stare, Geoff pointed to his arms and wiggled his fingers. After thinking about it he added, a bit wryly, “but, uh, maybe not because you kind of did a fucking number on your legs there.”

Jack glanced down, looking genuinely surprised to find blood-stiffened denim. He poked at it and winced because that’s what you _do_ with wounds. Freaking poke it to see if it’s real. Seeing that wince was like cracking the mold on whatever toxic sludge was keeping Geoff in the doorway and he stepped inside, stiffly, maybe, like there was a cord tethering his spine to the entrance and keeping him from moving too far. He kept himself facing Jack and side-stepped around the edges of the room until he could reach down and pick up one of the towels from near the top of the pile. He was acting, he thought distantly, like prey confronted by a predator.

He still stepped forward to offer it, but flinched when Jack moved, unexpectedly, across the floor away from him and towards to the toilet. Which, this close, smelled pretty sour and rancid, for reasons Geoff could guess. The younger man must’ve been sitting there a long time to be so blase about it because to Geoff it positively reeked. But it gave him a better excuse to drop the cloth and step back, pinching his own nose, rather than fear.

Because when Jack had moved Geoff had bitten down hard on a scream.

Silence owned the room while Geoff retreated back to the counter. Part of him wanted to leave the room, part of him wanted to shoot everything and claim the problem solved, but the rest of him pulled up short and forced him to put up a front by not conceding the whole room. He had too much pride to show how scared he actually was, and the rest wasn’t an option, not yet. Jack watched him move, until he found whatever he was looking for and focused his attention on pressing the scrap of terrycloth into the soaked denim. Whether it only came to his attention then or he judged he couldn’t do anything more for his legs, Jack started to dab at the assortment of cuts and punctures littered across his arms and even hidden by the mop on his head. They ranged from hairline fractures to digging gouges and Jack seemed surprised to discover each one.

It was all pretty mundane, though, and eventually Geoff got tired of waiting and watching and decided to grease the wheels a little to get the conversation back on track. He dropped, in one leisurely movement so it wouldn’t startle Jack this time, into a crouch, and used the cupboards to brace himself so he could use his hands. Jack took this all in in silence but his eyes were somehow cutting and stalled Geoff out enough that he had to regroup, scrubbing a hand down his face and taking the deepest breath he could.

“Alright, c’mon,” he urged. “Walk me through it. Why do you think you’re going to hurt me?” Geoff didn’t even have to see Jack’s face to know it was screwed up; the silence was loaded as hell and no amount of waiting was going to give Jack the courage to admit it. “…You’ve been getting weird urges, huh? Urges to do stuff you haven’t done in ages, maybe ever? Like you wanna hurt someone?” As an afterthought, “Eat them?”

Jack’s _face_. It was wide open and shocked, caught around the edges by shame and fear, and not even the worst night of ill-advised drinking had ever warped it that badly or left Jack that honest “Yeah. How-?”

It wasn’t until Geoff went to scratch self-consciously at his ears and his fingers encountered rough cotton that he remembered pulling his hood up before stepping out of the house. And then it made sense why Jack hadn’t reacted at all; he hadn’t even known. So, careful not to snag anything on his horns, Geoff pushed the hood off onto his shoulders. He ran his fingers through his hair, shifting around the tips and pushing it back so Jack could get a better glimpse of the nubs where they poked through thin, sore skin. They’d bled at first, sluggish, but now they seemed fine and Geoff made a mental note to check them in the mirror later when he had a chance. “Tell me about it man. One minute I’m dead tired and sick as a dog, and the next I’m rocking a whole new set of headgear and punching furniture.”

Jack’s voice cracked. Geoff might’ve laughed if not for what he said next. “You- that- Your ears look like they came off a donkey.”

Geoff scowled and cupped one of them, like he could determine by touch if that was true. “Aww gee, thanks, asshole. We can’t all be lionhearts, you know.”

“Lionh-?” Jack’s voice was easing more towards bewildered confusion, which was much more familiar territory.

“Yeah, that’s, I mean,” Geoff shrugged. ”You look like a lion, so. Well, I figure you do, what with the whole beard-mane, ears, and tail.” He made a vague gesture to his own mouth before making a clawing motion that even to him looked a little oversexualized. “And the…other stuff. So: lion.” On an errant thought, he grinned slyly. “Unless you’d rather be called Mufasa?”

“Sh-shutup, jackass!” Jack was quick to rebuff, but it came out garble by laughter that made Geoff lean back and relax. There was his best friend, buried under all the blood and fur. He’d finally found him. “Alright, if I’m a lion, then what the hell are you supposed to be?”

“Hell if I know, some sort of goat or sheep thing?” Geoff hooked a finger around one of the nubs and tugged, making a face for emphasis. “Hey, you know what, you can shut up, Mr. Crazy Hair Day. Horns are badass as hell, even little ones. It’s like, demonic and shit.”

A voice at the back of his head wondered, if horns made him like a demon, did Gavin’s wings make him some sort of angel and Geoff almost lost his shit. At Jack’s “what” Geoff shook his head and waved him off. “Nothing, just- I am so fucking happy I don’t have wings like Gavin. They’re twice as big as him.”

“Wait, this is happening to Gavin, too?” Jack interrupted, looking surprised.

“Huh? Yeah, he’s like some kind of bird. It’s actually kind of funny to watch,” he mused, remembering Gavin picking around the living room just the night before. He’d just looked like a big goofy ball of fear and feathers, not someone Jack could hurt, which brought him back to his point. “You wanna go see? ‘Cause all you have to do is leave this room.”

It was like Geoff had flipped a switch. Jack visibly withdrew, and it was all Geoff could do not to to groan and smack himself in the face. He just had to convince him, no problem. “Look, I know you’re afraid you’re gonna lose your shit but I’m not going to let you hurt anyone, okay? C’mon Pattillo, who’s got the gun here, you or me?”

Maybe it was Geoff’s harsh tone but some of Jack’s composure seemed to wear away when he glared at him over his glasses. “What happens if I hurt you? Huh? How are you supposed to protect people if you’re dead?”

“Who even says you’re gonna kill me?” Geoff reared back, a bit stung by the insinuation.

Jack made a frustrated noise and inspected his claws. “I can just feel it, man. Someone’s going to get too close and I’ll just snap. You’re already too-”

But before he could finish Geoff had popped up, pulled the gun from it’s holster, and aimed, sighting along the top right to Jack’s heart all in the course of a few seconds, fast enough to catch the other man off guard and make him recoil, like Geoff was the big scary predator and, well, good. He was.

Geoff paused for emphasis before putting the weapon away and holding out his hand. “I brought a _gun_ , Jack. I’m serious as dicks about this. I’m not gonna let you hurt anyone so just trust me, okay? Caiti’s terrified and she needs to know you’re okay so go fucking comfort your wife and leave all the hard shit to me.”

For a second Geoff thought Jack was going to refuse, but then he carefully wrapped his clawed hand around Geoff’s and allowed himself to be pulled to his feet. “Alright, fine, but if anything happens you shoot, promise?”

“Yeah, dickhead, of course.” Geoff turned, though it was hard to fight down the panic of leaving his back open, and lead the way. “Now change into something clean and come out when you’re ready. I’ve gotta go make a phone call.”

"Oh and Jack?" _It’s gonna be alright._ He couldn’t promise that, though. “I’m gonna figure this out.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll proofread it better later but for now I have some appointments to keep and gather strength for, so.
> 
> PS Anyone else thrumming with questions? Awesome! Flashbacks are totally a thing in this fic, don't worry, but next chapter is where we finally get some explanation!
> 
> Also Jack's perspective because why the fuck not.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Oh, and Burnie, Matt, and Gus show up. Yaaaaay. I dunno man, just- there's world-building, okay? Important shit you need to know.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello. No one is available to take your call. Please leave a comment after the end notes.

Despite his confident words, it seemed Geoff and Jack were both on the same page when he finally slipped into the living room and Geoff’s back straightened, his eyes sharpened. It was even more obvious when Caiti made to close the gap and Geoff neatly stepped between them, angled mostly towards Jack, but giving her his undivided attention.

Jack didn’t know how to feel about that, whether grateful or sad, because he wanted to be able to hug her and smooth out the lines of worry etching her face, but the harsh reality was that he couldn’t. Even from here it was a gamble at best. Probably the most unnerving thing about changing so far was the cold certainty he felt that he could kill her. She was vulnerable, exposed. Geoff was more of an unknown, mostly because of the gun, but in some ways Jack felt like he could best him and it came down to weighing the odds. In order to get to her, he needed to go through him. But anything Jack did to him would still give him a chance to fire off a shot before he bit it and Geoff rarely missed. The fact that Jack was even thinking about all of this was fucking terrifying and that fear was making it that much harder for him to keep it together. The fact that it had even crossed him mind at all spoke volumes to him about exactly how serious this was.

Geoff had to have warned her beforehand. It’s what Jack would have done with the extra five minutes it took for him to navigate changing clothes with claws and at least get everything off the floor in the bedroom. But whatever he’d said seemed to have an impact. Instead of panicking about either of their appearances, or arguing, Caiti stepped back without a word between them.

“Is there somewhere you can go for the time being? So you’re out of the house?”

It takes a beat for that to sink in before her eyes widen. “Wh- what do you mean? You want me to leave? Why...why would I do that? For how long?”

With each question her words came faster, and her voice hitched higher, causing Jack to forget himself and sway forward to help soothe her. Only he was stopped by Geoff’s staying hand and hard glare. It was a warning, clear as day, but surely the veteran could understand that she needs some comfort. “Geoff-”

“Hey, whoa, okay? I only mean that things are a little weird right now. You,” he points to Jack. “need to get your shit together, and you,” now he points to Caiti, his next words carefully chosen with a wry smile. “well, simply put: you don’t have a gun.

”It’s not safe for you two to be together right now, not until Jack is sure he can control himself. And I don’t really want him around my family right now, either, so I can’t just take him home with me. So _you’re_ the one who has to give a little.” Geoff doesn’t see Jack’s wince only because he’s turned around, but that’s fine. If their roles were reversed, Jack wouldn’t want himself around his family, either. It made sense that Geoff changed his mind.

As soon as she disappeared into the bedroom, Geoff drew a breath and scratched at the week’s-worth of scruff on his jaw. “Have you eaten?”

Jack shook his head, taking a mental breath and forcing himself not to stare after her, or strain to hear what she was doing. “No, just coffee.”

“That’s probably not helping your self-control, then. Come on, I’ll make you something since you’ve got the whole Freddy Krueger thing going. You can point me out to everything I need and then… fucking meditate or something. I don’t know.”

 

* * *

 

There’s banter, if you could call it that when Geoff left the gun out on the counter in easy view, and spent most of it trying not to agitate the bigger man. It’s a natural threat response; trying to be as uninteresting as possible, trying not to do anything to get in their way or draw their attention. It’s a lot easier to go unnoticed than it is to run or fight. That’s fine, because Jack barely paid any attention. Instead he spent the majority of the wait keeping his hands carefully on the table where they couldn’t catch on anything. They were pretty tender, so he had to leave them facing up, curled gently. That way they looked like an open threat, and they were hard to ignore, even though he tried to.

Caiti took longer than usual to rejoin them, and he pointedly refused to think about why, but when she came out, Geoff was almost done and Jack was really starting to feel his empty stomach. Geoff’s an excellent cook, and whatever he was making smelled amazing. And that put him so on edge that by the time they heard the bedroom door open, he was already tense, going so far as to hold his breath. Geoff was too, for his own reasons, but he turned completely around and the way he was holding a spatula suggested he was prepared to use it as a weapon. Probably because his post at the stove kept him from playing the physical role of dividing wall between the couple. Jack ached with the sentiment, especially when she stepped in from the hall only two uninhibited feet from him. The alien part of his brain that had seceded from humanity hadn’t forgotten its analysis of her and it sprung back to the fore, making him shiver, turn around and hunch down in his chair, looking to compress and bury the whole conundrum.

Mostly he only ended up badly startled by the familiar sensation of her arms slipping around his neck from behind like a pair of boa anchoring themselves to a limb. She didn’t lean on him the same way as usual, but he felt her head bump against his, just short of resting on her own arms, close enough that he could feel her vocal cords thrumming in his shoulder. “Barbara’s agreed to let me stay with her so I’m just gonna take the car.”

And for the life of him he couldn’t help but tilt his head until their temples met. He raised his hand in an aborted gesture, to cup her other cheek in a half-embrace, only stopped by the remembered claws at the end of his fingers. It was dangerous, it made his throat tighten. But his wife was leaving, and he wasn’t sure when he’d get to see her again, so he took a chance. For all he knew, this was it for them, which was a thought too upsetting to contemplate, so he straightened, and sat up, and she took it as a sign to let go.

“Goodbye, gents,” she parted with, followed by the distant front door shutting.

There was an unspoken agreement not to talk about it thereafter. Geoff bent to the task of salvaging breakfast from his momentary lapse of attention, Jack braced himself against the kitchen table and tried to regain his equilibrium.

He wasn’t very successful.

By the time Geoff dropped a plate of food in front of Jack(nothing fancy; just some eggs and bacon-and the lion’s share, to boot), he was more than a little lost in his own head. So they sat in near-silence, Jack eating almost mechanically. Once he got around the claws, it was almost easy. He just had to be more careful; crab his hands and avoid getting too close to certain things.

Geoff clearly noticed because, three minutes in, the first thing he said was, “you can probably trim those or something.”

Jack looked up from his plate just as Geoff went to shovel more eggs into his mouth, giving Jack a pretty clear view of the top of his head. If he looked, he could actually pick out the horns, small though they were. “What?”

Geoff looked up, speaking around his mouthful. “Y’r nails, ‘r wha’e’er y’wan call’em.”

Jack could only stare, brow furrowing. Did he say his nails? As if in answer, Geoff jabbed his fork in the general vicinity of his other hand, eyebrows raised, and then went back to eating like he hadn’t in days. Through the rest of the meal, Jack contemplated his hands. The nails weren’t that bad, if he ignored the worry dogging his thoughts. They were a little longer, true, but he could clearly see where they’d started growing faster in the middle, around the base of the cuticle, which caused them to draw to points. They’d grown too fast, too, based on the warps and ridges that had formed. Just touching them hurt which made picking up utensils a hassle, and they were red and swollen from the strain.

By the time they were done, Geoff looked concerned. “Look, why don’t you go ice them, see if you can’t get them numb enough to trim them. I’ll deal with this mess,” he said, indicating what was left of their breakfast.

Jack didn’t have it in him to argue. He _had_ been hungry―starving, in fact―but the spots of pain throughout his body, and events of the morning had managed to catch up to him in the quiet moments while they ate. He retreated to the couch in the living room with a makeshift ice pack. With some care, he managed to get the TV on, so there’d be something to drown out his thoughts. But it didn't stop them and as he flicked through channels, he found himself wishing they had any idea what this was. Was it contagious? Was it fixable? Was it terminal?

He had no idea how this had happened. It was basically like something out of a bad anime but so much worse because it was _real_. Unless it was a dream, although that was unlikely. If only.

Jack was pulled from his reverie when the TV cut back from commercial. He’d stopped on a news station, it seemed, without even realizing he was spacing out.

“We interrupt this program to bring you urgent news. Our field correspondent Johnathan Nicholls is coming to us live from the scene.”

The camera showed a sign, the kind that usually stand at the sides of roads and announce what businesses are nearby. This one was for a local hospital Jack had luckily never been to. Then it cut to a tan man in a grey suit jacket and powder blue collared shirt standing in the foreground, with a dimly-lit ward behind him. Every now and again someone in scrubs will move into view while doing their rounds or checking on patients, but otherwise it’s just the reporter’s voice and low-level background noise to keep his attention.

“Thanks, Rob. You’ll notice the ward behind me is quiet, and for good reason. Most of these beds are occupied, the patients victims of a never-before-seen illness that is truly bizarre.”

The scene cut hard to a pre-recorded interview consisting of video of a pair of hands resting on a coarse-spun blanket Jack recognized as the sort hospitals use for comforters on their beds. The owner of the hands sat facing the camera, and they fidgeted nervously, played with the plastic cuff around their other wrist by hooking their fingers through it and pulling until it spun against their skin. He knew the cuff had their personal information printed on it, but the only source of light was dim and yellow and came from over their shoulder so the letters weren’t legible. Meanwhile a voiceover, probably theirs, began to run. It wasn’t filtered, so Jack could tell that it was thin, anxious, and very clearly female. And probably young from how high-pitched it was, which made his heart clench with pity. He wasn’t sure what possessed him to keep watching, besides the usual morbid curiosity to see what new ways the world was messed up, but dread began to slip into his gut as she spoke.

“Well, umm, it was weird, actually, because I woke up in the middle of the night not feeling well, went to the bathroom, and it just, sort of...hit.”

Watching her hands clench and twitch with the flow of her tale finally jumped his thoughts and he realized what he was looking at. Her fingertips were swollen and raw, red with blood trapped right under the surface, and tipped with gnarled, pointed nails, just like Jack’s own. His throat closed so he had to swallow hard before he was able to call Geoff into the room.

On the TV the reporter reappeared, cutting the girl off. “The patients and hospital staff we’ve spoken to have all said the symptoms came on suddenly. Some even slept through them and woke later. It seems, due to the unique nature of the condition, most claimed to be unsure if they should seek professional help after discovering their situation.”

Geoff wasn’t holding the gun as he stepped into the room, that Jack could see, but his expression when he asked what was wrong was a strange mix of concern and wariness that would have unsettled the bigger man if he wasn’t fascinated by the news broadcast. The kind of fascinated that prompts someone to slow down and stare as they pass a car accident. In answer, he merely pointed at the screen and mouthed a “shh” without looking away.

“It wasn’t until news spread of how one man affected by the same illness had been rushed to the hospital after trying to flee the city and crashing his car, and another had been taken under protective custody and moved to an unknown facility by the Austin PD after trying to buy over-the-counter drugs to treat some of her symptoms, that those afflicted began to report to medical centers like this one.

“The epidemic doesn’t stop there! As reports trickle in from all over the country, doctors are baffled by the progression of the illness. It’s unsure whether it is contagious, much less how the illness might be spread so people are urged to stay indoors, limit physical contact with each other, and exercise caution in what you consume. Most victims seem to experience both aesthetic and behavioral changes, and symptoms include nausea, vomiting, sudden increase or loss of sensitivity to light, sound, smell, or sensation, rapid tissue growth, drastic changes to mood, irrational or violent behavior, growth of mammalian, avian, or reptilian appendages and features, including claws, wings, fangs, tails, anxiety, and paranoia.

“If you see a person you believe is afflicted by this disease, you’re strongly urged to call the police and not to engage them for your own safety. If you believe you are showing symptoms of this illness, you’re urged to see a doctor immediately.” As he talked, footage flashed on the screen, both moving and still. Each picture or video showcased a corresponding symptom, from headshots and profiles of people whose faces were blurred out but had furred ears in various, clearly inhuman shapes, or a few pictures from the back of tails of various lengths, shapes, and colors poking out just over the waistbands of hospital-issue pajama pants. From grainy footage of a figure with a long ropy tail running from police officers, to clear shots of people wearing sunglasses while clearly indoors, or images of arms and torsos where the skin broke into discolored, rash-like scales. There was even footage of a woman hovering over what might be her partner or best friend or sister and holding her shoulder in comfort while she leaned heavily on her knees. Poking out from the back of the latter’s loosely-knotted hospital gown were two huge mottled appendages, covered in smooth feathers ranging from huge to so small he couldn’t tell them apart in the thick downy carpeting they made across the leading edge of the limbs. _They’re wings_ , Jack realized, and she held them away from her body, like she didn’t want to brush against them, even though they still somehow managed to droop in that position. Looking closer he could see she had one hand fisted against her chest where her heart should be while the other cupped her mouth.

When the report ended on the last warning, the station cut to an air-freshener commercial whose cheerful music and dialogue were drowned out by the aura of stunned silence in the room. Jack was the first to break it.

“Holy fucking shit.”

“I’m fucking calling Burnie,” Geoff announced, already digging into his pocket while he strode back into the kitchen.

 

* * *

 

An hour later Burnie, Gus, and Matt all sat on various pieces of Jack and Caiti’s living room furniture. Geoff had long-since cleared the evidence from breakfast, and yelled Jack back onto the couch both times he tried to come help. Jack, to his credit, hadn’t pushed it after that, and instead focused more on making sure the rest of the house was clean, and keeping an ear on the TV. The story of the disease, nicknamed “hybrid flu” because of the flu-like symptoms and some teenaged interviewee calling the victims animal hybrids had been trending all morning, on every news station they flipped to and had become the topic of the entire country’s focus in less than a day. It had also, apparently, been upgraded from an epidemic to a full pandemic with reports and early numbers coming in the world over. Already people were estimating the number of victims to be somewhere close to two hundred thousand world-wide, though more were pouring in all the time, and probably many more hadn’t come forward yet, like them.

The newest arrivals sat on the opposite side of the living room from Jack, per Geoff’s and his insistence. It would have been better if Jack could lock himself back in the master bedroom again, but Geoff had vetoed that idea. Jack had a feeling if he did lose control that then he wouldn’t be so opposed to it, but really hoped it didn’t come down to him testing that theory. Joel had been called, as well, but never did answer, which posed another ominous problem since usually he’d at least text back by then.

Of the three of them, Burnie sat closest, for reasons that became apparent when he took off his hat. His hair was more unkempt than Jack remembered it being on monday when they filmed the podcast and peeking from his temples were little hardened knobs similar to Geoff’s, though his were smaller and darker, and thus even harder to see amongst his hair. Falling from the thick curls and framing his face were two dark, round blobs that honestly looked like matted clumps of hair but actually turned out to be his ears. Like Geoff and Jack, he could move them around freely, but seemed fine to just let them flop. When asked, he showed them his tail, which was probably something like a foot and a half long, roughly the same color as his hair, thick, and ended in a coarse black tuft.

"And what the fuck are you supposed to be?" Gus had asked, to which Burnie honestly had no clue.

"Maybe some kind of bovine or goat?" Geoff suggested. "If your horns were more grown in we might be able to tell.

The others hadn’t been caught in it like they had, but Gus still threatened to hit Burnie if he tried to put his tail away just to make them comfortable, and Matt drily corroborated. Geoff briefly explained the last 24 hours, with some help from Jack which prompted Burnie to tell how he'd gotten up to get some water, and collapsed in the kitchen. He'd been awake for the whole change and had been too dizzy and sore to do more than crawl to the bathroom and wait it out 'til dawn a few hours later. He insisted that was all that had happened, but Jack would bet good money he'd lied about that.

They left the news going in the background, but the truth was they had more important things to deal with, like worrying about how this pandemic might affect the company. Jack wasn't much help, since he spent a lot of his time regulating his mood, but if anything, just by how focused he was on it, and how intent Geoff was, they were starting to understand the severity of the situation more. As the hour passed, news programs began to report more and more on the strange behavior of those in the hospitals and care facilities. More stories were emerging about patients reacting violently to each other, or fleeing, as if in fear. The others looked to Jack when those stories cropped up, but mostly didn't say anything.

There was a chance that more employees would change and start acting strange like Jack, Geoff, or Gavin. And no matter what, getting a bunch of potentially unstable people into close quarters was liable to be trouble. And there was no telling what this weird condition might do added to the mix. They had to keep an eye out for other hybrids and, more importantly, try to figure out how to handle the situation.

After almost two hours of brainstorming and talking, they needed a break. Joel still hadn't answered, and no one had seen him at work, so Matt and Burnie volunteered to go check on him. Jack, Geoff, and Gus had been more than ready to stay put and keep working on the problem, but within ten minutes, Gus' phone rang. It was Barbara asking if he knew if Adam Ellis took a sick day. When they tried his cell, there was no reply.

"What are the odds this is the same thing?" Geoff asked, voice already tinged with resignation. The two of them stood and moved together toward the front door, Gus retrieving his jacket from the back of the armchair on his way.

"I'd say pretty damn good," he pressed his lips together. "Should we go check on him?"

"Yeah, probably." The sigh Geoff heaved was worthy of Grif but his expression was serious when he turned to Jack. "You coming? Since you're his friend?"

Jack, who was still sitting on the love seat, flinched. He'd expected to be told to stay put, which he wasn't going to argue. But Geoff looked completely comfortable, like he'd forgotten what had happened only hours before.

"Nah," he waved him off. "It's not really worth the risk. I'll just stay here and watch the news."

"Suit yourself," Gus called, and then a moment later they were out the door. For the first time all morning, Jack allowed himself to relax, slumping back into the couch with a heavy breath.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, no clue if that reporter exists in the real world. If he does, I promise it's a coincidence; I don't research for shit. Also I am really sorry for the delay. I forgot to cross-post this, like a right nob.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm ficcyshit on tumblr! Come find me and scream about AUs, yeah? Someone teach me how to link outside of the archive because for some reason I'm fucking it up.


End file.
